Torres (US)

Brooklyn’s TORRES – aka Mackenzie Scott – went to UK to record her second full-length album. Sprinter is the noisier follow-up to the Nashville-bred songwriter’s acclaimed introspective self-titled debut. At the Bristol studio of Portishead’s Adrian Utley, with his guitar riffs and synthesizers lingering in the background and PJ Harvey’s Robert Ellis and Ian Olliver on rhythm TORRES pushes herself to a punishing self-examination of epic spiritual and musical proportions. Juxtaposing the contrast of Deep South conservatism with futuristic sounds, she made a “space cowboy” record that is one of the highlights of the year.

Happyness (UK)

London-based Happyness (“For fans of Sparklehorse, Pavement, MGMT and Yo La Tengo” according to Rough Trade Shops) self-released their first album Weird Little Birthday in 2014, before getting signed to Moshi Moshi. Weird Little Birthday was re-released worldwide in April. This year they played Eurosonic and won an award for Best Lyric at NME Awards , for the timeless: I’m wearing Win Butler’s hair/There’s a scalpless singer in a Montreal rock band somewhere.

Hooton Tennis Club (UK)

Musically melodic, fragile, wonky, witty, poetic and pop the skewed melodies and oddball narratives (tales of banal jobs, relationships, memorable parties and passing characters) combine in perfect symbiotic musical harmony, each song a small burst of sunshine to warm the coldest of hearts. Think Teenage Fanclub, Guided By Voices, Randy Newman, Big Star, Silver Jews – but birthed in northern English towns in the 21st century. This is the sound of the summer of adolescence slipping into the autumn of adulthood.